Attachment Flashcards
What are the two key animal studies in attachment?
- Harlow’s monkey study
- Lorenz Geese
What was the aim, procedure and findings for Harlow’s monkey study?
Aim - to test ‘cupboard love’ by applying it to a group of new-born monkeys
Procedure - 8 monkeys were raised in cages, they had the option to spend time with either a cloth mother who only provided warmth and comfort. Or, a wire mother who did not provide warmth or comfort, but instead provided food.
Findings - the monkeys all chose to spend the majority of their time with the cloth mother, only visiting the wire mother for food
Harlow’s monkeys AO3
Unethical - the monkeys were severely socially and cognitively deprived when they were put back into normal captivity, leading to them being outcast by the rest of the monkeys in the enclosure
Pioneering - disproved ‘cupboard love’
Influential - made Jon Bowlby begin his research into attachment which lead to his pioneering theories
Non-generalisable - humans are not monkeys
Lacks internal validity - likely to be other factors which affected the monkeys, such as how the mothers were so drastically different, it is plausible that the cloth mother was preferred on appearance instead
What was the aim, procedure and findings for Lorenz’s research into geese?
Aim - to test if his theory of imprinting
Procedure - a sample of 24 eggs were split evenly into a test and control group. The control group were raised normally and hatched with their mother. The test group were incubated instead, and Lorenz was the first thing that they saw, and he acted as their mother.
Findings - both groups imprinted to their respective ‘mother’. Lorenz claimed that the process of imprinting took place between the first 12-17 hours of life.
Lorenz’s Geese AO3
Guiton (1966) - supports Lorenz after performing a similar test using chickens and a rubber glove for their mother, which provided similar results
Ethical issues - the study had a permanent affect on the geese when they were returned to the other geese
Hoffman (1976) - questions Lorenz after proving that imprinting was not permanent and could be reversed to a certain degree if the animal is returned to its own kind for a decent period of time
What is Learning theory and who proposed it?
Dollard and Miller (1950) - stated that all children are “blank slates” at birth as they are unconditioned. Children then learn and develop through classical and operant conditioning
Define classical conditioning and give an example related to attachment
Classical conditioning = learning through association
- an example would be how children learn to associate food with their mother, which is how they develop their attachment
Define operant conditioning and give an example relevant to attachment
Operant conditioning = learning through reinforcement or consequence
- an example would be how children upkeep their attachment through reciprocity (child smiling = parent smiling and vice versa)
Learning theory AO3
Harlow - questions this approach as he proved that monkeys chose comfort > food
not generalisable - most research into Learning theory was performed by animals
What is Bowlby’s monotropic theory?
The theory that children develop one strong attachment bond to their primary caregiver during the critical period, the bond is used by the child to develop the internal working model
What is the critical period?
between birth and 2 and a half years of age, children must develop a bond with their primary caregiver or it will be detrimental to their cognitive and social ability later on in life as they do not develop a functioning internal working model
What is the internal working model?
a cognitive framework which is developed with interaction with their primary caregiver. It influences how the child will interact in a social environment. The IWM makes children realise that:
- other people are trustworthy
- the self is valued
- they can be socially effective when interacting with other people
AO3 for Bowlby’s monotropic theory
- supported by both Lorenz’s geese study (shows how IWM is developed) and Ainsworth’s strange situation (shows how the IWM is used in the real world)
- questioned by Rutter’s orphan study (showed how children can make attachment outside of the critical period) and Shaffer & Emmerson (proved that most children have strong attachments to multiple caregivers)
What was the aim, procedure and findings of Ainsworth’s strange situation?
Aim - to see if children had different types of attachment to their mother
Procedure - a controlled covert observation of 100 middle class mothers & children, who entered a room designed to be unknown to the child, but seemed familiar as it contained toys. The room also contained a stranger, who across 8 scenarios which lasted around 3 minutes each, would leave and re-enter the room and interact with the child. While the mother also left and re-joined the room at different points.
Findings - Ainsworth developed 3 types of attachment, which were Securely attached (70% of children), Insecure resistant (15%) or Insecure avoidant (15%)
What were the behaviours shown by the 3 attachment types discovered by Ainsworth?
Secure - distressed when the mother left, happy when she returned, and used the mother as a safe base to explore and interact with the stranger
Resistant - intense distress when the mother leaves, avoids the mother when she returns, and is fearful of the stranger regardless of the mother
Avoidant - no distress when the mother leaves, does not care when the mother returns and is happy to interact with the stranger and explore regardless of where the mother is
Strange situation AO3
Not representative - only tested middle class Americans Lacks ecological validity - not realistic scenarios Standardised procedure - replicable and testable, which lead to the data used in Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg's data analysis
What research was conducted into cultural variations in attachment?
Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1998) - performed a data analysis on the results of 32 studies which used the strange situation across 8 different nations.
What was the results of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s research?
Nation Num of Studies Secure Avoidant Resistant
GB 1 75% 22% 3%
GER 3 57% 35% 8%
NET 4 67% 26% 8%
SWE 1 74% 22% 4%
JPN 2 68% 5% 27%
ISRL 2 64% 7% 29%
USA 18 65% 21% 14%
CHN 1 50% 25% 25%
GB / SWE = most secure
GER = most avoidant
ISRL / JPN = most resistant
Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg AO3
Biased samples - only 36 people were used in the China study, most of the studies came from western nations (18 came from USA)
Ethnocentric bias - the strange situation itself was designed in the US, so may not work in other nations
insightful - shows how attachment/parenting styles differ across nations
What is Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation?
Failure to create a strong attachment bond to a primary caregiver within the critical period, leads to cognitive, social and emotional damage later on in life.
What are the all the effects of maternal deprivation?
ADDIDDAS
A - aggression D - delinquency D - dwarfism I - intellectual retardation D - depression D - dependency A - affectionless psychopathy S - social maladjustment
What research did Bowlby conduct into maternal deprivation?
44 thieves study - Bowlby assessed 88 children (44 were juvenile thieves, the other were a group of 44 control children) for affectionless psychology, only 14 of the 88 children tested positive, all 14 were thieves, and 12 of the 14 had been separated from their mothers for more than 6 months between birth and 2 and 1/2 years. Giving a strong support Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation
Maternal Deprivation theory AO3
Harlow (1958) - his monkey study also showed how maternal deprivation affected the monkeys in later life
Radke-Yanow (1985) - found that half of children with depressed mothers were insecurely attached. Questions whether it is the quality of parenting not absentness of parenting
Extremely insightful - Bowlby’s theory has lead to orphanages being required to have children stay with foster parents for a minimum amounts of time to enable them to form attachments, and hospitals allow for sick children’s parents to stay with them overnight
What was the aim, procedure and findings of Rutter’s study of Romanian orphans?
Aim - to see how Romanian orphans who were adopted after being institutionalised, would develop compared to a control group of British orphans.
Procedure - 100 Romanian and 100 British orphans were psychologically and cognitively assessed at the ages of 4,6,11 and were then re-assessed at the age of 21. the 200 orphans consisted of roughly 3 equal sized groups, adopted at the ages of 0-6 months, 6-12 months and 2-4 years of age.
Findings - all of the Romanian children who were adopted before the age of 6 months showed normal development compared to the British orphans. However, those adopted after the age of 6 months began to show signs of disinhibited attachment, which got increasingly worse as the children were adopted at an older age
Rutter’s orphan study AO3
- Using children to obtain information is not always accurate, their memories may be vague/distorted
- The results of the test may not be representative, as many of the children stopped taking part on behalf of their parents request
What was the research conducted by the Bucharest early intervention project, and what did they discover?
- They used the strange situation to assess 136 institutionalised Romanian orphans who’s age ranged from 12-31 months.
- Found that only 19% of the orphans were securely attached, compared to the 71% who were securely attached in the control group
What did Hartup believe about how children’s attachment type affected their social ability in school?
Hartup argued that children who were securely attached would be more popular at school, as they are more confident in their interactions. Unlike children who were insecurely attached would likely rely on teachers for support when being social
What studies support how the internal working model affects our parenting style and our romantic relationships?
Bailey - proved that most women have the same attachment type as their mother and their children
Harlow - showed how an absent parent leads to poor parenting in later life (ignoring child, not feeding, etc)
Hazan & Shaver - used their ‘love quiz’ to show how most people’s romantic social ability matches their attachment type
